I’m psyched that I've signed on as a contributor to AlterNet. I have
great respect for the content of this site and I hope that I can
contribute to it favorably. It’s an even greater honor to have my
interview with Congressman John Lewis as my inaugural post.
I was invited by the Georgia Alliance to End Homelessness to speak at their annual conference. So too was Georgia’s 5th district Congressman. The Congressman spoke eloquently
about the need to “put on the American agenda the issues of hunger,
poverty, homelessness.” He said that these issues were once a vital
part of the political discussion, but that now, “all these years later
there are still too many people in America that have been left out and
left behind. There are still too many people without a place to stay,
to lay their heads. There are still too many of our people – here in
this country with so much wealth, so many resources – without food to
eat. And hundreds and thousands and millions of these people are women
and children.”
It was refreshing beyond description to hear a member of congress –
our congress which has failed to fund the necessary repairs to the
system – proclaim that system broken and failed. And that worst of all
it’s failed children. After his speech I asked him why it was that
things weren’t repaired. He told me that when he first started serving
in Washington – back in January of 1987 – there was “a greater sense of
hope, a greater sense of optimism and a greater commitment to people who
have been left out.” He said that if someone proposed the necessary
programs of Head Start or Food Stamps to today’s congress, they wouldn’t
pass.
Congressman Lewis said that for the first time since he marched with
Dr. Martin Luther King the nation’s leadership has adopted, “the
mindset, the sense to let each person, each group, fend for
themselves.” Then he indicted many of his colleagues in Washington. He
said that they, “don’t share a lot of the values of the American
people.” And added that Mitt Romney with his now famous 47% comment,
“was sharing the feelings of many of the members of congress. And that
the current “political structure of congress has allowed them to turn
their backs on the people,” the very people that they were elected to
represent.
I asked him what it would take to turn things around. Congressman
Lewis told me that people had to do what he had done as a young man
marching for civil rights. He said, “It’s time for the American People
to get in trouble.”
Lewis explained that when he was young and fighting alongside Dr.
King, “My parents used to tell me not to get in trouble.” But he
admonished that notion. He continued, “Some of us got to get back out
there and fight the good fight. I heard Dr. King, I met Rosa Parks and
they encouraged me to get in trouble.”
Dr. King didn’t just encourage him to get in trouble, he financed
it. When young John Lewis – the son of share croppers – wrote to Dr.
King to ask for help getting to college, Dr. King sent him a bus ticket
and brought him into the fold. And as a civil rights activist Lewis got
into trouble in a big way. He got beaten bloody by the KKK
and herded and huddled by the police. But he did not give up. “Dr.
King changed my life,” explained Lewis. “He said he saw something in
me.” He hopes to inspire people the same way.
No comments:
Post a Comment